The usual azure sky was gone, left was a deep blue, almost black backdrop with little twinkles easily seen by the eye. Looking at the horizon you could see a lighter blue, it's almost dawn.
Almost silent surroundings, light wind brushing the sand. A being in the wet, pitch black water being lightly rocked. Sitting on a raft? Almost a long thin almond shaped door like thing. That's a surfboard.
Drifting along on a surfboard, laying on their stomach, chin on the board looking straight at the horizon. Eyes distant, looking at, longing for something that's not actually there. Unafraid of the pitch black sea that surrounds them and can consume them at a break of silence.
That is just what happened.
No longer floating above the sea, now engulfed fully by the void, still distant from their person, unaffected.
At first it is as if they are just being, floating in black void. Eyes open but unseeing. Most would be scared, scurrying to the surface, but they were not. Looking comfortable, but not there in the moment.
Suddenly it is no longer a void of black, light has come through, not from the surface but the floor of the sea. Turning the sea a twinkle of blues and whites, giving a glowing beauty you can't even imagine, that can't be described.
This could very well be a hallucination from loss of air, but in the person's profession they need to have a great lung capacity, and this person does not step out of this norm.
The beautiful shining water surrounding him, the epitome of ethereal. As if his surroundings are animate, full of emotions, alive.
Not sure how far below he is, not even flashing in his mind for a second, to entranced by the view in from of him. Not like anyone else would not be.
This was what they were waiting for. Having had this event happen before, not telling a soul. Even after what he saw he could not stop thinking about what they witnessed. This has happened more than once, twice, thrice. And it keeps luring him back. Getting more and more enraptured.
Getting farther away from his life and more thing about what might come. This sight that wraps around him swallowing him, and somehow letting him go. Not keeping him there. His longing to stay grows and grows. His lung capacity lengthening, eyesight able to adjust to the lack of light quickly and efficiently.
Some nights he lets himself swim with the curiosity of a child exploring, and going on adventures. Others he just floats there eyes closed or open, taking in and just feel the sea.
Love for the ocean growing. These moments swelling with a home feeling more than his original. Wanting to stay, and never return to his original life. Some would call this obsessive.
Tonight was one the nights of just floating, existing in the water. Eyes half lidded relaxed and without noticing they slip shut, pulling him into a sweet dream. The comfort of his surroundings enticing him like a mother's lullaby to their child.
He never emerged from the water again. No body found, family, friends and acquaintances worried for him. Surfboard left on the beach erected from the sand in memorial for him.
People move on, friends have mourned, family has remembered him. All have move forward in life, living with his memory.
Family have heard from fishermen and lifeguards that they spotted someone in the water resembling him, having known him from his frequent visits to the place of land meeting water.
Saying he ignored their calls of his name. Getting close he would dive down to avoid them, letting them catch a glimpse of his legs or nonexistent legs. In replacement, something only known in legend, myth, something left as untrue by most, a fishtail.
The sea and sky engulfed him in love when he came into their grasp. A child of the sea and sky. A mermaid, the very first was born.
The story of how mermaid came in to being.
